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Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

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Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#521

Post by weberer »

mk89 wrote: post #440
jagermo wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some good points, i have a few thoughts to add. Norway: yes, they are doing fine (80% EV, btw, so it seems you can actually use EVs in colder weather... I think the nordics are actually way ahead of the rest of Europe when it comes to sustainable energy creation, with norway getting about 90% last year from Hydro - super impressive. https://lowcarbonpower.org/region/Norway France: I think they might turn around, beca…

Norway: 5.50 million people. Finland: 5.6 million people Sweden: 10.57 million people. All these 3 together have slightly more population than NRW in Germany, and they have way more money. So: almost same population, way more money and way more resources to generate energy (unless we want to consider Coal again... then we'd win). The sooner we stop considering the Nordics as the model example the better it is for all…

While we're on the topic, Finland gets around half of its energy from nuclear. It doesn't have the luxury of fjords for hydro like Norway and Sweden, or easily tapped geothermal like Iceland.

You can see a nice live graph here. Wind isn't blowing at the moment, so the fossil fuel co-generation plants had to kick in.

https://www.fingrid.fi/en/electricity-market/power-system/

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#522

Post by gpm »

FredPret wrote: post #437
Archelaos wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear technology is a dead end. Renewables and saving energy is the future. Nuclear and fossil are in the same boat. They are both more risky and have huge hidden costs that the general public and future generations will have to bear. The only good reason to go nuclear these days is if you want the bomb, like Iran. Interestingly, it is the same people who supported fossil in the past who are still promoting nuclear…

Renewables have huge hidden costs as well. Solar panels and windmills are low density sources - we need a LOT of them to get the job done, and even then you still need base load somehow. That means a huge amount of extra powerlines and future landfill of defunct panels. Not to mention the very sturdy windmill foundations scattered around the landscape. Say what you will about nuclear, but all of its negatives are con…

You do not, ever, need base load power. Base load power is by definition power generation that does not follow the demand curve because it is uneconomical to do so. In this way it is entirely similar to solar and wind in that it cannot, by definition, fill the entire demand for power and it needs to be completemented by dispatchable power sources.

You do need dispatchable power sources (which you can pair with solar/wind/nuclear/...). Recently that has mostly been in the form of gas peaker plants. Today, in most places, the most affordable form of new dispatchable power is batteries paired with excess solar generation.

The real estate costs for solar and wind are not hidden, you pay those costs up front when you install the projects.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#523

Post by kharak »

okucu wrote: post #510
grumpy-de-sre wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a bad legacy for Robert Habeck (along with the wind reforms), the leader we needed but didn't deserve [1][2]. Interestingly he's recently dropped out of politics and taken a teaching role at UC Berkeley. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxwVR5JF8Ok 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxnnVPO9GFU

How out of touch do you have to be with reality? 2+ years of recession and he was the leader we needed? He literally ruined us all

He has been well received among left-green voters, civil servants and alike. He communicated without the usual empty political phrases, that alone brought him sympathies. He also managed the Ukraine crisis well, for instance, he was involved in quickly finding alternative gas sources after one of the Nord Stream pipelines had been destroyed. I'd say he embodied the values, policies and mannerism of his electorate better than anyone else.

And yet I agree with you. Economically, he disappointed through and through. Same for climate change, which ironically is at the heart of the Green party he belongs to. For example, to more conservative voters, he's will mostly remembered as the politician who wanted to bring a central planning approach into their homes, forcing everyone to install costly heat pumps, with their own money, without much regard to their specific household situation. All to achieve no effective carbon emission reduction.

But to his left-green electorate, he remains sacrosanct, his critics are dismissed, often as far-right.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#524

Post by ajross »

walthamstow wrote: post #339
grumpy-de-sre wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a bad legacy for Robert Habeck (along with the wind reforms), the leader we needed but didn't deserve [1][2]. Interestingly he's recently dropped out of politics and taken a teaching role at UC Berkeley. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxwVR5JF8Ok 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxnnVPO9GFU

I'm not German nor do I live there, but I would have thought the legacy of Habeck would be more negative due to his opposition to nuclear.

It's just absolutely mind-boggling how the "But Nuclear!" refrain persists as a mind worm in this community. Every story on renewables, every single one, has a giant sub thread up near the top of the discussion screaming, again, about the clearly-must-be-important-because-everyone-says-so hypocrisy behind opposition to nuclear power.

It really just doesn't seem in good faith. It's been going on for a decade at least. Every win, every positive story, every bit of evidence that just maybe this part of the climate puzzle is actually being solved[1] gets met not with celebration, but with indignant tut-tutting that it was done with boring stuff and not Nerd Friendly power.

When does it stop?

[1] Doesn't take too much Googling to find coverage claiming that ~90% of new electricity generation capacity globally is renewable. This problem is solved folks. It's time to start looking at the higher hanging fruit.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#525

Post by alexey-salmin »

Slartie wrote: post #457
alexey-salmin wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your generalization that any kind of decentralization amounts to collective action failure is wrong. Some kinds of decentralization do; ... Others don't. That's correct, yes. I too prefer a decentralized washing machine to coin-operated laundromats which are very common in France where I live nowadays. However I still believe that electricity generation has more in common with steelmaking than with laundry. Today s…

> Today solar panels make sense in terms of money ROI but not in terms of KWh ROI That is clearly wrong. Even the worst-case embodied energy assumptions for solar panels estimate the cost of producing a square meter of solar panel area at 2000 kWh (the best cases are around 300, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_return_on_investment#Ph... ). A square meter of solar panel area produces an average of 200 kWh of…

30 years lifetime (if there are no heavy storms), 5-10 years to recoup energy, that's 3-6 EROI. Then you also need to include inverters which are energy-heavy. If we're talking of any meaningful scale, then you also need to include batteries because without them panels get shut down during sunny hours lowering the EROI even further.

In the end you're lucky if you get EROI of 1.5-3. That's an extremely bad deal. All other sources of energy, renewable or not, are in the 20-100 territory. The purpose of the energy production system is not to barely sustain itself but to actually produce usable electricity for everything else you want to do. It's the means, not the ends.

Solar panels have very solid benefits of course, you can buy them for your house to be more autonomous -- I would do that if I had a house. But from the energy/CO2 perspective what you're doing is buying a sort of "battery" that was charged with cheap coal-based electricity in China and shipped off to US/Europe. This makes sense in certain situations but presenting this as a green solution or as future of humanity is just delusional.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#526

Post by Scea91 »

slightwinder wrote: post #397
walthamstow wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not German nor do I live there, but I would have thought the legacy of Habeck would be more negative due to his opposition to nuclear.

Nuclear has no relevance in Germany, never really had. The plants barely added any value to the market. When Habeck became Minister, most Nuclear plants were already gone, and the last remaining were phasing out, lacking nuclear fuel and permits. Habeck even gave a permit for the last plants to run some more months, squeezing out even the last parts of fuel as much as they could, just so they could serve as an additi…

Right at this moment Germany's electricity mix has 364gCO2eq/kWh carbon intensity, France is at 21. That is because 37% of Germany's production comes from gas and coal.

Even from an environmental standpoint, France is doing much better than Germany and that is thanks to nuclear.

Also, by closing operating power plants, Germany weakened European energy production at the time when we geopolitically need it the most.

https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/DE/live/fifteen_min...

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#527

Post by Scea91 »

forty wrote: post #505
LunaSea wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nuclear technology is a dead end. You should look at CO2 / kWh in Germany vs. France

You can also decide to look at countries which went 100% renewable and have even better CO2/kWh rating than France (Iceland, Norway, Albania for example).

In the last 90 days France's CO2 footprint is at 78% of Iceland's.

Also, what lessons learned in Iceland, Norway or Albania should we apply in central Europe? We don't have their geothermal and hydro potential (all your examples are not solar+wind but hydro primarily).

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#528

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

FredPret wrote: post #518
adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

solar panels actually decrease load on power lines. every house with solar panels on it reduces the amount of power the grid needs to bring to that house

In that case, yes. But for solar farms, it's the opposite. That's why I think we should end up with: - gas plants: easy and cheap to spin up, can provide district heating - nuclear: squeaky clean, issues are concentrated in one spot, district heating - solar panels: super cheap, decentralized, and there are lots of opportunities like rooftops and carparks where we are wasting sunlight right now I just re-read Critica…

Solar farms aren't really any worse for the grid than other types of power plants that can't be located near cities.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#529

Post by wvbdmp »

grumpy-de-sre wrote: post #300
MrGilbert wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to his Instagram, he is currently working in Copenhagen: https://www.instagram.com/p/DOFwjUfDXdp/

Thanks for the update! I wonder if he changed his mind on the Berkeley offer [1]. Part time role though so maybe he just hasn't relocated. 1. https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/innenpolitik/habeck-gastdoz...

Copenhagen, then California was always the plan afaik. Berkeley is just not until next year.

Re: Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

#530

Post by okucu »

kharak wrote: post #523
okucu wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How out of touch do you have to be with reality? 2+ years of recession and he was the leader we needed? He literally ruined us all

He has been well received among left-green voters, civil servants and alike. He communicated without the usual empty political phrases, that alone brought him sympathies. He also managed the Ukraine crisis well, for instance, he was involved in quickly finding alternative gas sources after one of the Nord Stream pipelines had been destroyed. I'd say he embodied the values, policies and mannerism of his electorate bet…

>he was involved in quickly finding alternative gas sources after one of the Nord Stream pipelines

The very same pipeline he helped to cover that their own ally destroyed

Also what the hell is your argumentation? "Actually the people who voted him, liked him" no shit. The very same people are more in favor of war than the average Nazi back in the 30s

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